Cobra Trailer Fenders

Agreed on plastic breakaway fenders. Also, earlier comment about wheel covers...that turns them into awesome rodent dens. I wouldn't unless you're going to disturb them every week.

I guess this is kind of like the debate over metal vs. fiberglass tops on German trailers. I shattered a plastic fender before my ASW 24 was a year old and installed galvanized steel fenders not long after. The right one has been dented twice in catastrophic tread failures but I just pull it out with a big pair of vice grips. I've never seen any sidewall damage though I'm sure it's possible. I expect to replace them this winter for cosmetic reasons and will probably stay with steel.

Has anyone seen trailer sidewall damage from an impact on the fender that didn't otherwise contact the trailer? The aluminum sidewalls on my 1992 Cobra are pretty robust. They stopped two 9mm jacketed bullets in Texas a year ago.

Chip Bearden
JB

On Friday, December 6, 2019 at 5:06:07 PM UTC-8, Dirk_PW wrote:
I like the cheap plastic fenders because they act as a weak link when something hits them. They shatter instead of transferring the impact loads to the side of the trailer. If something hits a metal fender, don't be surprised if it bends or wrinkles the side wall of the trailer where it is mounted. Other road debris can slam into the fenders that can do more damage than lost tread.

I've had both, and, no, I haven't seen any damage transferred to the trailer body (fortunately!). The damaged metal fender had to be replaced. Replace your tires at reasonable intervals; when they blow you will have to replace them anyhow, along with the fender.

Tom

Original fender used by Spindelberger:
https://www.hood.de/i/al-ko-plus-kot...m-84664337.htm

The manufacturer is 'Alko'
And the name of the part is 'Kotflügel plus'
A normal club star cobra has black fenders, a better equipped has blue or red ones.

I hope I could help you.

Lukas (LS6a)

Sorry about contributing to the thread drift but this exchange about the tires themselves is interesting and useful...

When I changed the tires on my Cobra trailer about 6 years ago (yeah, I'm due) I purchased trailer tires that were already mounted on wheels. When putting the tires onto the trailer the tires ended up sticking out a few inches from the fenders. That's when I noticed that the original Cobra wheel had a positive mounting offset while the new wheels had a zero offset. I decided to mount the new tires onto the old wheels. I've not had any problems so far but wondering about the criticality of the wheel mounting offset especially as I go shopping for new tires for the upcoming season.

From the etrailer.com website:
Trailer or automotive wheels can have a positive or negative offset. The offset refers to the distance between the mounting surface of the wheel that touches the hub and the center line of the wheel...
A positive offset will move the tire closer to the trailer, while a negative offset will push the tire further away.
Most of the trailer wheels we offer, including the Americana Aluminum Mod wheel you referenced, part # AM22327, have a zero offset, which means that the the mounting surface is on the same plane as the center line of the wheel. This is done to equalize the weight of the trailer load.

https://www.etrailer.com/question-44405.html

Danny Brotto

Danny,

You should be fine sticking with the same tire you have if that's worked. If you change, just make sure the overall diameter is about the same (that figure is available for most tires). I'm actually running slightly larger diameter tires intentionally to get more ground clearance at the rear of the trailer.

I'm still shopping for replacement wheels for my older Cobra. It's a 13 x 4 1/2 wheel with a 29 mm positive offset. The bolt circle is 4 holes on 100 mm and the centerbore is 57 mm. Mine are stamped K13S133 and FAD | 4 1/2 JX13H2, which seems to indicate this was a common wheel years ago (the original Komet trailers had wheels that fit the old Open Kadett imported from Germany).

I believe later Cobras went to a 14" wheel, which seems easier to find. I'd be fine with moving up; I'd just use a lower profile tire with about the same diameter as what I have now.

What's proven difficult is that the published wheel specs don't always include values for all of the above measurements. A wider rim would be OK (there's enough clearance between the tire and sidewall now) but as you found out, a significant change in the offset would not. Nor would different bolt circles or centerbores, although there are adaptors out there to shrink a larger centerbore to a smaller size.

I'd rather stay with a cheaper steel wheel since I have to buy three of them and since I've damaged two already in blowouts (the second one running a TPMS that didn't warn me properly--when the tire blew catastrophically and the sending unit got knocked off by flapping tread, the readout continued to provide the PSI/temp that was last reported.)

I suppose one solution is to go with a zero offset wheel if that's common and just get wider fenders. I intend to replace mine anyway.

Chip Bearden
JB